Welcome to the Jackson County Historical Society e-Journal
Since 2020, the JCHS e-Journal arrives monthly to our subscribers inboxes. Under the direction of Brad Pace, editor, our Publications Committee is actively engaged in bringing new content to our readers monthly. The Jackson County Historical Society e-Journal ranges broadly over time and thematic focus while maintaining a pledge to share minority voices and forgotten Jackson County stories.
Submissions
The Jackson County Historical Society welcomes submissions for publication in our e-Journal. Articles, both academic and non-academic, pertaining to any aspect of Jackson County, Missouri history are actively solicited. For a submission guide, or to discuss a project, please email journal@jchs.org
His character, charisma and career once held prominence and dominance on the local, state, national and international stage.
As United States senator from Missouri from 1911 through 1929, he led the fight against President Woodrow Wilson’s goal of American entry into the League of Nations following World War I.
He appeared on the cover of Time Magazine on March 7, 1927, as he considered another presidential run. His opposition to President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal catapulted him from the Democrats to the Party of Lincoln.
Today the name of James A Reed is remembered for a road in Kansas City and a nature preserve in Jackson County. This was not the case during his lifetime, as no one held a more commanding and dominating presence. He was a gladiator in the courtroom and an uncompromising politician. And while his legal and political careers were compelling and domineering, Reed’s personal life was filled with intrigue, scandal, and secrecy.
For the past several months Erin Gray, digital archivist for the Jackson County Historical Society, has been tasked with processing the vast Wilborn Collection of archival images. Steve Noll, former Society executive director, with his wife Marianne, donated the collection to the Society in 2017.
The Jackson County Historical Society has been privileged to maintain one of the county’s most accommodating attics.
And, anyone with an attic knows how they tend to fill up.
After more than 60 years of receiving and processing the generous donations of county residents and families, the Society has run out of available nooks and crannies. Accordingly, this winter, Society staff members took unprecedented steps to ensure the longtime health of its one-of-kind archival holdings.
In recognition of Black History Month, this issue of the E-Journal salutes Alversia Pettigrew, the author of a book about 'The Neck,' the Black neighborhood in Independence in which she was raised. The 'Neck' was demolished in the 1960s when the city implemented Urban Renewal. In her book Alversia shares her experiences growing up Black in Independence, and recalls a vanished neighborhood which was once home to generations of African Americans.
The Kansas City Museum, shut down for several years, reopened in October.
The refurbished museum today brands itself as “Home of the Whole Story,” a description that rings true. Since its opening in 1940, generations of Kansas City area students and visitors have found there Kansas City’s complex narrative from frontier outpost to sprawling nine-county community.
Kansas City was the fount of Connell’s early creativity. His family life, which largely played out in the comforts of Brookside and Mission Hills, can be inferred from the pages of his best-known works of fiction, the companion novels Mrs. Bridge (1959) and Mr. Bridge (1969). Those books present an upper-crust slice of Kansas City’s social fabric as it existed in the 1930s and 1940s. The Bridge novels have—or should have—been required reading in Kansas City for decades, alternately loved for their crisp and intimate vignettes and warily regarded for their aching truths and acid views of middle-American hypocrisy.
As a historian, David Jackson is drawn to Kansas City and Jackson County’s origin stories. And, the building and opening of the Hannibal Bridge may be Kansas City’s ultimate origin story. Officials dedicated the span - the first permanent bridge across the Missouri River - on July 3, 1869.
Just like today, Jackson Countians roughly 100 years ago were wearing masks and working from home. In this latest edition of the JCHS E-Journal we're featuring an article that originally appeared in the Missouri Historical Review in 1968. Writer Kevin McShane explores how Kansas City coped with the great influenza of 1918. Lessons learned 100 years ago can help guide our way today.
The JCHS E-Journal explores how the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum is recognizing their centennial despite the challenge of COVID-19. Read about how fans are tipping their cap to celebrate this historic event.
The former JCHS president, Virginia Jennings Nadeau, lived a life full of "creativity, intelligence and grace." We are grateful to share this telling of her story by Brent Schondelmeyer.
We will periodically republish classic articles pulled from the archives. We hope you will enjoy this article, Old Rail Depots in Independence, which was originally published in the April-May-June issue of 1982.
Our latest E-Journal article was written by Joe Roberston with the Local Investment Commission and describes a new 44-page digital and print publication Kansas City Black History: The African American story of history and culture in our community. The project shares the stories of over 70 African Americans from the Kansas City region who have passed along with current essays including one from Kansas City, Missouri Mayor Quinton Lucas.
This article is reprinted with permission from the new book The Will of Missouri: The Life, Times and Influence of Alexander Doniphan. The book was a community history project organized by the Alexander Doniphan Committee and published by Woodneath Press, an imprint of the Mid-Continent Public Library. The book contains articles and contributions from 18 contributors exploring Doniphan’s life and influence and was endorsed by the State Historical Society of Missouri as one of the many projects to help celebrate Missouri’s 2021 Bicentennial.
Calling balls and strikes continues to represent challenging work for baseball umpires, but conditions have improved in Kansas City, where fans attending games in the late 19th century sometimes brought their guns with them, making umpires – as well as league investors – nervous. As the Kansas City Royals open their 2021 season, the E-Journal presents the following article by Pat O’Neill and Tom Coffman, local authors of the forthcoming book, “Ted Sullivan, Barnacle of Baseball: The Life of the Prolific League Founder, Scout, Manager and Unrivaled Huckster.”
While the story of singer Patsy Cline is largely centered in Nashville, the country music capital, Jackson County – specifically, Independence – played a melancholy role in Cline’s 1963 death in an airplane crash in Tennessee. The January death of an Independence country music disc jockey from injuries sustained in two-vehicle collision near U.S. 40 and Sterling Avenue brought Cline to Kansas City several weeks later. What happened then – as well as during the decades since – continues to resonate with the late disc jockey’s two sons.
While you will encounter the occasional beach in Jackson County, Kansas City area readers don’t need beaches to enjoy a good read during warm weather, That’s why we thought September would be a good time to remind Jackson County Historical Society members of the great reads available through the Society’s online bookstore.
Younger, perhaps Lee’s Summit’s most familiar historical figure, is scheduled to be front-and-center during the community’s observance of the Missouri bicentennial on August 10.
A main event on that day, in both Lee’s Summit and across the state, will be ice cream socials. In Lee’s Summit, those lined up for ice cream in the 200 block of SW Main St. also will have the option of free admission to the nearby Lee’s Summit History Museum.
On the evening of January 18, 1915, the Kansas City Star reported that the city’s first jitney bus had started operating in the city. Jitneys were privately owned early automobiles whose owners accepted set fares to transport people along an established route. The name was taken from a slang term for a nickel, the usual fare charged by the drivers for a ride.
